The Football association was created to organize Football in England and other countries were encouraged to have their own football associations.

There are other versions of football, (American - Gridiron), (Australian - Aussie Rules), (Irish - Gaelic)..but only one football.

The Olympics and FIFA only accept football, no other versions of football are accepted by official sports organizations.

Football (also given the nickname Soccer by English), was first played as a game in England in the mid-19th Century. The name is a slang version of the "Football association".

Football's deeper origins stretch back much further in time and are more controversial. Certainly, different people have independently invented versions of the original football, mainly because they struggled with the high technical demands of football.

Here is more input on those deeper origins:

• Nobody really knows where football came from some say it was from the roman who used their enemies head as ball other say the Chinese, other say it came from South America where they used anything as a ball, including people and the loser would be sacrificed and sometimes the winner. The only documented reference to the origin of soccer is from the observations of Herodotus who describes a game played by soldiers where the defeated team captain's head would be severed, dipped in melted rubber, and used for the play of the rematch.
• It started in Brazil when a few children were playing together when they saw a bucket of soft rubber which came from a rubber plantation nearby. Then, one of them got an idea and turn it into a ball-shape. So, the children play with each other but not in the modern way. They just pass each other without touching with their hands. Some tourist nearby happen to pass by and saw what had happen and decide to change the game with two goalpost and 20 aside.
• Football was first played as a game by Roman soldiers, who used the heads of their enemies in a game with simple goalposts. So it's understandable why there is a rule against touching the ball with your hands. Just kick it again.
• It began in Italy with small rocks, we now call Bacchic ball, played by the Roman soldiers when bored that their post, progressed to larger rocks, then do to the difficulty in the weight, material was sewn together to form a large ball, each century there were modifications made, until today.
• Football came to Europe from the Mexicans after a battle they would chop off their opponents' head and use it at a football. This form of entertainment was then taken across to Europe by the Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch etc. only they invented the ball.
• The historical origin of Football was in China in about 2600 B.C. They used a ball made of leather and the goals were about 30 feet high and 20 feet apart and was played in celebration of the emperor's birthday. The name was called Tsi chu. It was played during the Hun Dynasty.
• Football was invented by the Mayan and Aztec Indians in Central America. At the Mayan Ruins, in the city of Copan, Honduras, they have a one of the first soccer fields ever. This civilization dates back to more than 10,000 years ago. In this civilization, football teams would compete against each other and the captain of the winning team was sacrificed after the game. The act of being sacrificed was considered an honor to these people.
• From the history of Football page at About.com: "There is documentary evidence that a a game or skill building exercise, involving kicking a ball into a small net, was used by the Chinese military during the Han Dynasty - around the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. Earlier evidence - of a field marked out to play a ball-kicking game has been found at Kyoto, in Japan. Both the Greeks and ancient Romans played a soccer-type game which resembled modern soccer - although in this early version, teams could consist of up to 27 players!"
• FIFA.com has an article about the history of football that credits the Chinese with inventing the ancient form of the game.
• It is believed that the first recorded Football game took place on a Shrove Tuesday in Derby, England, as part of a festival to celebrate the victory of English soldiers over Roman troops in 217 A.D. By 1175 the annual Shrove Tuesday soccer game was a regular event.
• It is correct that a lot of games were played in the history of mankind where something was kicked around. As well as tennis, volleyball or hacky sack are not simply defined by the fact that a ball is played over a net, Football is not defined by trying to kick something into a whatever goal. The game known as Football today was founded in the English public schools in the early 19th century by simple school boys that played the game although it was mostly forbidden. They discussed and changed the rules of the game. Later the games were allowed and seen as good training for manly hood and fairness. To give an extra challenge to fair play and self control the boys of Eton forbade the use of the hands. As not being allowed to use the hands is the main characteristic of Football in contrast to rugby, I would say that was the moment when Football was born. Football and Rugby parted and went different ways, the first became the sport we know as Football today. Football later spread to the continent, where the first national game was Austria against Hungary.
• Football was believed by scientists to have been started in the Han Dynasty in 1000 B.C. They think that it was played by the military to make sure that the soldiers were ready for battle. It was later played in the Roman and Greek civilizations, but with many more players and not that many rules. It is known for a fact that "soccer" was played in 600 A.D. in Kyoto, Japan. Later, football was played in the United Kingdom by people of all sorts. The king of England thought that Football should be banned because of how dangerous it was, but no one could stop soccer because it had become too popular of a sport. Today Football is all over the world and considered to be the most popular sport of all.

Football is the official name for soccer. Football with the nickname Soccer comes from as"soc"iation football...a name given by the English. Only in America and Canada do they call it soccer, as the game that evolved from rugby is called American football (Gridiron).

The global name for football is of course football. The global name for American football is Gridiron. Gridiron is a code of handball and not football.

Football is a sport where players control the ball with their feet and only football does this.

Football has been played for many centuries but had no official rules.

The British created rules for football in around 1848. After that many codes of handball arose including rugger and Gridiron, none of which are codes of football.

The football come from China as there is recordation on the zhong1guo2ce4(战国策), its most popular time must be during the Tang dynasty and the Song dynasty, where even women joined in. The game was called Cuju(蹴鞠). _____________________________________________________________________

American Football predates World football, it was soccer that took on the international name "Football" after American football was already invented.

In the United States, the most popular sport in 1960s was baseball.

Obviously, the answer would be different for each country; but it would make the answer unworkable to attempt to list each and create a great many disgruntled 'differing' people!

Oklahoma, Miami, Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, Maryland and Florida are the only schools to accomplish this feat. Several other teams have come close only to lose the championship game.

UCLA has never won a baseball championship and USC has never won a basketball championship.

Holy Cross won the NCAA Basketball Title in 1947. Holy Cross won the NCAA Baseball Title in the early 50's.

Holy Cross has never won a NCAA football title (at 1-A or 1-AA level). There was a period in the late 80's they were ranked #1 in 1-AA, but they were not allowed in the playoffs as their administration would not permitted them to play in the post-season (something called academics).

The only non 1-AA team win national title in college football? University of Chicago, 1905.

Correction: The University of Miami (FL) has never won a basketball championship.

look it up on answers.com

Whatever you found could be the subject of great controversy anyway, as there are quite widely differing figures on many of these claims concerning inter-country "popularity" of various sports, and who, even, engages the various sports within certain of these countries.

I have even seen claims that volleyball was the most popular sport in the world! Yet it ranks No 1 in very few countries.

Of the various 'figures' that we do have, many are highly unreliable.

However, the great consensus of worldwide opinion on this subject, states that association football [soccer] is by far the most played and most popular.

From there, opinions of those that follow soccer in popularity vary greatly.

Philip John Noel-Baker, Baron Noel-Baker, born Philip John Baker (1 November 1889 - 8 October 1982) was a politician, diplomat, academic, an outstanding amateur athlete, and renowned campaigner for disarmament who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959.

He was selected and ran for Britain at the Stockholm Olympic Games in 1912, and was team manager as well as a competitor for the British track team for the 1920 and 1924Olympics. In 1920 at Antwerp he won a silver medal in the 1500 metres

The commonwealth games did not start until 1930 by which time Philip Baker had retired from athletics